


Highway to Fel

by Skirdus



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Girl Cordana, Cigarettes, Crack Treated Seriously, Drug Dealing, Drug Use, F/M, Motorcycles, Smoking, Strippers & Strip Clubs, Swearing, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 02:54:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7667509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skirdus/pseuds/Skirdus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Khadgar and Cordana have been together for some time now, but lately she's been acting strange. Khadgar's a little more than concerned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Highway to Fel

**Author's Note:**

> A few friends on Tumblr approved of me writing this, so I did just that. I hope they enjoy the aberration they approved the engendering of.

The silver-haired youth found himself subjected to a rude awakening as the sequential pounding of several stones against his window stirred him from his light slumber. He glanced over at the luminous digits of the clock on his dresser, appalled to find that the time was 2 AM. Why had he been awakened at this ungodly hour? His response came in the form of the sound of another rock colliding with glass. Khadgar cringed, wary of everyone else who was currently sleeping in the estate he currently resided in. After rolling out of bed in an expectantly groggy manner, Khadgar stumbled to his feet and shambled over to the source of the noises. He peered down at what appeared to be a misshapen silhouette of sorts, but as time gradually renewed his blurred vision, he came to recognize the entity as two separate ones: his significant other, Cordana, and the motorcycle she was riding. Out of the fear of wakening the rest of his household, and to his girlfriend's chagrin, he did not open the window so that the two could communicate verbally. Instead, he simply granted her an equally perplexed and disgruntled expression, his features curling in such a manner that Cordana could just barely make them out to be as adorable as ever. She then silently gestured with her hands for him to come down and meet her where she was, to which Khadgar responded with a curt and dismissive shake of his head. After an extensive bout of inaudible pleading, however, he became convinced that, perhaps if he sated her just this once, she wouldn't pull something like this again.

Once he'd changed into something more formal (yet equally as loose-fitting as his pajamas), Khadgar slipped out his front door and halfheartedly darted over to where his sweetheart and her vehicle were located. In a hushed yet peeved voice, he spoke tersely, "What are you doing here?!"

Cordana replied with a sultry snicker, adjusting her current sidesaddle position into a proper one. With her hand, she patted the vacant portion of the seat that was behind her, retorting with a mere "Hop on."

The male balled his fists, his grogginess seemingly replaced by anger at this point. "Are you serious?!" he scorned. "Do you have _any_ idea what time it is? I can't afford to lose anymore sleep, what with-"

He was interrupted by a slow shushing from Cordana, one gloved digit raised to her lips in the process. "Chill, babe," came her response. "You can get all the sleep you need tomorrow. Right now? We're off to have a little fun. Now c'mon."

Khadgar rolled his azure-laden eyes, knowing all too well that the other wasn't one to be deterred from her aims; whatever they might have been. Begrudgingly, he gave in to her demands, stepping a few paces forward to apprehensively seat himself at the rear of her bike. Not two seconds had passed before Cordana loudly revved the engine; an action that reignited Khadgar's fear from earlier. Thankfully, from what he could see from outside the house, no one had been awoken by the noise. He had almost managed to breathe a sigh of relief at that realization, but found himself instead suddenly clinging onto Cordana for dear life as the environment around the two of them soon turned into a speeding blur. The wind rushed violently through his argent mane as his orbs shut tightly and his expression contorted into one of complete and utter fear. Khadgar could feel his life flashing before his closed eyes, the deafening rumble of the vehicle beneath him only adding to the sensation. Cordana, on the other hand, remained practically stoic (save for the subtlest of grins) throughout the entire process, far more familiar with it than the meek man behind her. By the time Khadgar had regained what courage he originally held, the ride was over. Without a word, Cordana dismounted the vehicle, offering a hand to help her significant other do the same. Aggrieved, Khadgar allowed her to take his hand in her own, muttering with thinly-veiled vexation, "You should have worn a helmet..."

He paused for a moment to take in his new surroundings, entirely unfamiliar with wherever it was that Cordana had taken him. They appeared to be in an area he could at least define as 'urban', and perhaps 'unsavory' and 'shady' to be more specific. She didn't remove her palm from his as she began walking towards a nearby building, causing Khadgar to stumble for a moment before swiftly recovering his footing and walking with her. "Where are we, exactly? And why?" he questioned, and yet Cordana gave him no reply; not until they had reached a repugnant-looking set of doors. They looked more like a back entrance than a front one.

She glanced over her shoulder at him and then spoke, "I'll be right out. Stay here, 'kay?"

"What?!" he exclaimed, his refusal of her request evident by his tone, "I don't want to be alone in a place like this, not even for a moment!" He gestured down a neighboring alleyway, wherein a pair of abhorrent rats were currently brawling over a moldy scrap of food.

It was Cordana's turn to roll her eyes, and she finally spun around to address him fully, "Look... There's some people in here who you, uh... might not like. I don't want them starting shit with you, so can you please just stay here? I'll be real quick, I promise."

Khadgar remained unconvinced this time, slipping his hand out of Cordana's grasp and subsequently crossing his arms in a withholding gesture, "No, Cordana. I'm staying by your side. We both know how much trouble you can get into when I'm not around."

Guiltiness flashed across her face for a brief moment, but Cordana eventually submitted defeat and took Khadgar by the hand once more. As she prepared to escort him inside, she whispered, "Stay close, alright?"

He gave her a soft nod before the two finally entered the establishment.

The place was dimly lit, and yet as he trudged down the hallway, Khadgar could make out things he wished he was unable to. Through one doorway, he spotted a handful of dreadlords playing pool. One of them gave him an ominous and foreboding expression as they chalked a cue stick. Khadgar shuddered, looking away and into another room. There, he found himself an unwitting spectator to a scantily-clad succubus blithely spinning around a pole as a few robed figures - _warlocks_ , he figured - threw bills in her direction. He clenched his teeth, more so out of concealed fear than anger, as Cordana continued to escort him through a location he now regretted entering; even for his girlfriend's sake. Eventually, they came to a main room of sorts, and Khadgar found himself practically _surrounded_ by a diverse array of carousing demons. He avoided their gazes, instead boring his own into the back of Cordana's head as a means of distracting himself from his repulsive environment. After some time, they managed to reach the far end of the room, and as Cordana stopped moving, Khadgar allowed his curiosity to get the best of him as he peered out from behind her at whatever it was that had halted her. The pair was standing before a table, and at the other end of it sat a gnarled figure draped in disconcerting garments. With a straw, he was currently snorting what appeared to be a foul green powder that glowed with a resonant taint. The figure found himself interrupted by a hacking cough that lasted a few seconds, then, after setting the straw down, peered up at the duo. The combination of the figure's green skin and red eyes allowed Khadgar to discern his identity.

"Gul'dan!" Khadgar attempted to exclaim, but it came out as a whimper instead. The orc let out a low chuckle, and Cordana nearly failed to refrain from doing the same in response as she glanced over her shoulder once more.

"You still take interest in that whelp, Cordana? You know he pervades your mind with... _unkindly ideas_ ," the warlock affirmed.

Cordana responded with an abrasive snort as she turned to face the elderly dealer once more, "Zip it, Methuselah. You got what I want from you?" She leaned down on the table with crossed arms.

"I," he began in a raspy voice, "as always, have whatever it is you desire, so long as you are willing to... _pay the price_ , of course."

A sinister cackle began to leave his maw, but it was interrupted by Cordana's gentle slamming of her retrieved dollar bills onto the table. "Yeah, yeah. Here's your price," she chided.

Gul'dan growled lowly, but proceeded to slide them over into one of his pockets using only a few of his crooked fingers. From under the table, he retrieved a black and green rectangular carton of sorts, delicately pushing it back over to Cordana. "Will this do, then?"

She looked over it for a only a few seconds before snatching it up and nodding with a subtle "Mhm."

The warlock nodded back, reaching over and, with a single digit, rolling the straw from earlier back and forth across the table, "Take care of yourself."

"No promises," came Cordana's curt reply.

Khadgar, having found himself an idle spectator to all this, was snapped back to reality as Cordana tugged him away from the warlock and towards the building's exit. Gul'dan gave the male a wry grin from afar as the distance between them increased at a seemingly exponential rate.

Once the two were outside again, Khadgar managed to find the words that had escaped him throughout the entire experience. "Just... w-what... What were you thinking, Cordana?!"

She shrugged in reply, leaning against the building's wall as she opened the carton and took out it a small cylinder that bore a similar hue to its container. From her pocket, Cordana retrieved a dull yellow lighter, and then set the carton in her pocket and placed what Khadgar could now identify as a _cigarette_ between her lips. He fumed, and would have ripped the foul thing right out of her mouth had he not been painfully aware of her relatively immense strength.

"You can't be serious!" Khadgar rebuked, "You know how unhealthy that stuff is for you! And... how could you affiliate yourself with _him_...?!"

Cordana removed the cigarette from her mouth, holding it between two digits as she replied, "We're not affiliated. We just trade money and, uh... this." She gestured to the cylinder in her hand before setting it between her lips once more and raising the lighter to the other end. Khadgar externally and internally recoiled as she lit and inhaled the substance. With a moment's passing, Cordana exhaled a foul green smoke off to the side.

Khadgar let out a pained hiss, his expression conveying a pure mixture of rage and despair as he nearly threw his arms up into the air and almost shouted, "I can't believe this! I can't believe _you_!" And with that, he swiftly turned on his heel and began walking away from the scene; away from _her_.

She hadn't expected him to go back on his fear so easily, and thus Cordana nearly choked on what smoke remained in her mouth as her eyes shot open in panic. Both cigarette and lighter were dropped to the ground as she rushed after him. "H-hey! Babe, wait!" she called out, but Khadgar payed her no mind. As soon as she managed to close the distance between them, Cordana set a hand on his shoulder in a grasp that she _attempted_ to make seem reassuring. Her failure to do so came in the form of Khadgar brushing the hand away with his own, still refusing to even look at her.

"I can't believe you," he reiterated. "I can't believe you'd think I'd be okay with you acting so... so reckless!"

A frown graced Cordana's features as she shook her head repeatedly. "I'm n-not-... I'm only hurting myself, Khadgar, not you!"

"Is that what you think?" he spat, finally turning to face her with a shadow cast between the bridge of his nose and his hairline. "You think what you do to yourself doesn't affect me, Cordana? It hurts. It hurts far more than the pain of being faced with my failure; the one I inadvertently subjected myself to back there."

"I..." She trembled, "I'm... sorry... I-... I just..." Her gaze turned from Khadgar to the ground, where she now felt it belonged. "It's hard to care about yourself when... nobody else does..."

"And even harder," Khadgar started, "when someone else prevents you from doing so. I'm familiar with the feeling, Cordana. I'd hoped that by now you would have understood that I'm here for you."

Cordana fought back the tears that now sought to well in her eyes, "Heh... Yeah... I guess I... forgot. I'm... I'm really stupid, aren't I?"

"We're all a bit stupid, I think."


End file.
